The Keyhole makes observations about consumers, brands, ads, & marketing, through a predictive customer loyalty lens. Most marketing is ineffective to today's bionic consumer, given undifferentiated products, loss of "brandness," & hard to come by profits. Marketers talk about "engagement" but nobody seems to be doing a very good job measuring or integrating it into what they do & it shows! The Keyhole opens a dialogue on this subject & suggests real-world solutions with the marketing community.

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Today is the 45th anniversary of Earth Day. Its celebration comes
with the hopes of tens of millions of people that this is the moment in history
where equilibrium between sustainability and economic growth is realized.
According to the experts, to do that, everyone – including brands – have to
commit to a low carbon future.

For brands, simply playing the environmental awareness card
as part of a CSR or PR campaign isn’t an actual option anymore. Brands have to
do it in ways that meaningfully support a sustainable future that is palpable
to the consumer. And as the number of companies trying to co-opt environmental issues
for their brands has grown, so too have the number of skeptical consumers. Most
consumers have heard such promises before and – in the face of increased
expectations – have begun to demand authenticity. They understand that the
technology exists, and more and more consumers feel that all brands need is the
will to make it so. To borrow a phrase from the Wizard of Oz, consumers want brands
to be "morally, ethically, spiritually, physically, positively,
absolutely, undeniably and reliably" green.

While we recognize that there are many corporations looking
to find ways to do business in a sustainable way, of the 550 brands included in
this year’s Customer Loyalty Engagement Index, here are the top-50 brands
deemed authentically and resolutely “green” by their own customers. They are
presented alphabetically since environmental demands and consumer expectations are
category-specific.

Acer

Adidas

Air Canada

Amazon.com

Apple

AT&T

Aveda

Avis

Brother

Budget

Burt’s Bees

Canon

Chic-fil-A

Chipotle

Coke

Dell

Discover Card

Dunkin’

Epson

Ford

Hilton Hotels

Home Depot

Honda

HP

Hyundai

IBM

InterContinental Hotels

JetBlue

Kohl’s

Konica-Minolta

Le Pain Quotidian

Macy’s

McDonald’s

New Balance

Nike

Panera

Peet’s

Pepsi

REI

Samsung

Starbucks

Subway

Tom’s of Maine

Toyota

Under Armour

United

Walmart

Whole Foods

Wyndham Hotels

Zappos

Two thousand fifteen could be the year in which world
leaders finally pass a binding climate change treaty and citizens and corporations
divest from fossil fuels and both politicians and consumers put sustainability
and renewable energy solutions where their mouths are. It turns out that
consumers are fiercely loyal to brands that do that.

If you want to put your own principles and environmental
standards to the test, Earth Day Network has a Personal Footprint Calculator,
so you can see the impact you’re having on our planet. Just click here and take
the test: http://www.earthday.org/footprint-calculator

For what it’s worth, when it comes down to the bottom
bottom-line, unlike many things in our lives, it’s exactly what
environmentalist Wendell Berry said, “The earth is what we all have in common.”

Find out more about what makes customer loyalty happen and how Brand Keys metrics is able to predict future consumer behavior: brandkeys.com. Visit our YouTube channel to learn more about Brand Keys methodology, applications and case studies.

Friday, April 17, 2015

Netflix posted a 24% sales gain with a subscriber base of
over 60 million users Wednesday, with attendant revenue growth just shy of last
quarter’s 26%. Some of that -2% has to do with “currency-related transactional
losses with the strength of the U.S. dollar affecting international revenue.

What we know for sure is Netflix was again #1 in the
Streaming Video category, as measured by the Customer Loyalty Engagement Index,
a predictive leading-indicator of positive consumer behavior toward a brand. As
the metrics are predictive of that favorable consumer behavior – in some cases
12 to 18 months ahead of earnings reports – we weren’t surprised to see that
Netflix had added nearly 5 million new subscribers in the last quarter,
outpacing the previous quarter, for a grand total of 62.3 million members
worldwide. If it helps to picture what a subscriber base like that looks like,
think pretty much the entire population of the United Kingdom.

None of this came as a surprise since emotional engagement
and loyalty metrics always play out in the marketplace, and Netflix has been
managing to exceed customer expectations for a while now on virtually all the
drivers of loyalty and engagement, like connectivity and viewing options or
fees, with the most important having to do with “a wide range of original
entertainment,” the critical and resonating engagement value being “original.”
Currently, rankings for the category look like this:

Netflix

Amazon

Google Play / Hulu / iTunes

Crackle / YouTube

Vimeo / Vudu

Veoh

Iwatchonline

Cinema Now

Blockbuster

HBO just released its standalone streaming video service –
HBO Now, the non-customer version of their HBO Go – this month, but given the
timing, it was not included in the January 2015 Customer Loyalty Engagement
Index, although it will be included the 4th Quarter Loyalty Leaders Listing, so
we’ll see whether subscribers tune in to the new offering at a price higher
than Netflix’s. That said, while Netflix is doing very well, HBO isn’t sweating
just yet. HBO currently has 140 million subscribers.

About the population of Russia.Find out more about what makes customer loyalty happen and how Brand Keys metrics is able to predict future consumer behavior: brandkeys.com. Visit our YouTube channel to learn more about Brand Keys methodology, applications and case studies.

Wednesday, April 08, 2015

It’s just like
Yogi Berra said. “A home opener is always exciting whether
it's home or on the road," and Major League
Baseball opened its 2015 season this week with the cry of 'play ball'
accompanied by the release of the 23rd annual Sports Fan Loyalty
Index.

For some teams
this season starts with high levels of emotional engagement and fan loyalty.
For others, well, they found themselves in the cellar just as the season
started. But fortunately, the Sports Fan
Loyalty Index was designed to help professional sports team management identify
precise fan loyalty rankings in their home and national markets with metrics
that correlate very, very, very highly with viewership and purchase of licensed
merchandise. Like batting. 800. Interviews with 250 self-declared fans in
each team’s local catchment area provided more than just attendance numbers –
they enable league and team management to identify areas, particularly
emotional ones that need strategic brand coaching.

Current 2015 MLB top-5 and bottom-5
brand standings are listed below:

Top-5 Teams - 2015
2014 Rankings

1. St. Louis Cardinals
(#1)

2. San Francisco Giants
(#5)

3. Los Angeles Dodgers(#6)

4 Detroit Tigers(#6)

5. Washington Nationals(#8)

Cellar Dwellers
2014 Rankings

30. Houston Astros
(#30)

29. Arizona Diamondbacks(#21)

28. Colorado Rockies(#26)

27. New York Mets(#22)

26. Texas Rangers(#19)

The Sports Fan Loyalty Index, which
measures all the teams in the MLB, NBA, NHL, and NFL provides apples-to-apples
comparisons of the emotional intensity with which fans within a team's local
area support the home team versus corresponding values for fans of other teams
in that market.

OK, let’s get one particular
perpetual area of contention out of the way right away.

Sure, everybody loves a winner, but
it's important to note that win/loss ratios only govern about 20% of fan
loyalty. Losing may have little to recommend it, but it turns out that
ultimately there are more leveragable things than the final score – three other
emotionally-based things, in fact, that make an 80% contribution to loyalty and
must be taken into account when
calculating the loyalty score for a team. These include:

Pure Entertainment: How well
a team does, sure. But even more importantly than a win-loss ratio, how
exciting is their play? Think St. Louis Cardinals or the Pittsburgh Pirates
(#13, up from #23 last year).

Authenticity: How well they
play as a team. Offensively or Defensively. How consistent they are. A new stadium
can help lift this driver, but more usually, a new manager. Look at the Detroit
Tigers.

Fan Bonding: Are players
particularly respected and admired? Not every team has a Derek Jeter, but there
are players like Buster Posy of the Giants or the Dodger’s Clayton Kershaw.

History and Tradition: Is the
game and the team part of fans' and community rituals, institutions, and
beliefs? No matter how you feel personally, the Yankees (#7, down from #6 last
year) have the highest rating when it comes to History and Tradition and, for
what it’s worth, It’s what keeps the Cubs (#16) loyalty levels going!

Again, because overall league and
team rankings correlate so highly with viewership and merchandise sales, and
since rankings can be influenced depending upon how loyalty drivers are
managed, it's critical that team marketers do accurate scouting regarding the
strategic ball they intend to pitch to fans. Bobble heads and foam fingers only
go so far.

All teams can benefit from increased
fan loyalty levels, but as baseball is traditionally called America's “National
Pastime,” there’s a real emotional connection for the fans. It’s worth
remembering baseball is the only place in life where a sacrifice is really
appreciated and teams can build on successes and put
failures behind them.

For you other fans, we’ll be issuing
the rankings for the NBA just before playoffs, the NHL for the Stanley Cup, and
NFL rankings in time for their kickoff in September.

In
the meantime, Go (YOUR TEAM GOES HERE)!

Find out more about what makes customer loyalty happen and how Brand Keys metrics is able to predict future consumer behavior: brandkeys.com. Visit our YouTube channel to learn more about Brand Keys methodology, applications and case studies.

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The Keyhole: Peeking at 21st Century Brands

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About Us

Robert Passikoff, founder and president of Brand Keys, is a sought-after speaker and global thought leader on engagement and loyalty. He has pioneered work in these areas, creating the Customer Loyalty Engagement Index and the Sports Fan Loyalty Index. New York University’s communication school has declared Dr. Passikoff “the most-quoted brand consultant in the United States.”